..

[Meh]

..

[Overcomer]

Wow.  Where did you get this?  It is excellent and really makes sense to me.  I would like to copy and paste it to my mother!

[Meh]

Overcomer,

I'm glad that it was helpful to you.

I wish I knew where I got it but honestly I have been hauling it around in a box of papers with me for about a decade. I forgot I even had it, has a big stain on it, is a single sheet poor quality photocopy. It only says Tom R. is the author. My guess would be that I picked it up at a codependents meeting somewhere. I only attended about 2 of these meetings. But I have no clue at this point. Yeah, I thought about reading it to my Nar-mother who I am NC with. But then I thought again and decided no.

[sKePTiKal]

This is an excellent description of "the problem"! I wonder if you saved it unconsciously in recognition of that, for a time when you were ready & able to comtemplate it?

Only thing I'd point out, is that the article or essay stops short. Because of that, it gives the impression that once the "damage" is done, there is no hope for repair, recovery or change. That the poor child is doomed to a life sentence - and surely, having been one of those children - I can say it does feel excruciatingly that way.

But everyone on the board is proof that this impression is wrong; it's not a life sentence. Everyone is unlearning and re-learning, growing and healing various things, at their own pace.

[Meh]

Removed

[sKePTiKal]

Yep - you're definitely onto something concrete that won't evaporate!

It is true, and I hadn't quite realized either - until you said it - we do have to love ourselves every day. Even when we're not even trying, or when we're in a foul mood (maybe even more then?), or when we're just mopey & whiny - without having a "good reason" why...

and I think this is something that is taught by example - and learned by osmosis: just being around someone who cares for themselves. But it's not something that's spelled out in our cultural, aggregate socio-historically agreed upon "good practices" for being. It ain't in the manual, in other words. It's not on the list of skills we have to have, to get into kindergarten.

What is considered socially acceptable practice has, is, and continues to change.**

(**This comment has been edited extensively, 'coz it struck a sensitive nerve... and I digressed into a big rant. Figured I'd better stop while I was still making sense & on topic.)

[Portia]

Hi Helen, to me the article sounds very much like Alice Miller (and parts of a few other authors I've read). Good explanation of 'the problem' and I agree with you, I think the real self needs reminders, nourishment and the message: go easy on your self, let it go, it's no big deal (whatever 'it' is). Maintaining awareness.

Amber, it *is* in the manual, but not the manual everyone reads - I know what you mean, and I agree, the knowledge is not readily accessible (or acknowledged as such). And one of the biggest problems may be.....that those who are in positions of power, positions where they could influence schools/family life/social organisations....so many are completely unaware of 'the problem', or in denial of it and are lost to themselves so they're going to .......I really don't need to say any of this, it's all too bleedin obvious isn't it.

As to feeling doomed to a life sentence - some people do feel that way, and it seems, they are doomed. Have you heard of a book called 'Stuart, a life backwards'? I don't know what it would have taken for Stuart to be saved. Perhaps an entirely different life. Sorry it's depressing/saddening but it's also real.

[sKePTiKal]

Yes Helen, it does feel like work. Took me 2 months to decide and make an appointment to simply have my long, long, unstyled hair cut into some kind of "style". During that time, I worked to convince myself that it was OK to want to be "pretty" - to take a chance on a new salon; to not worry about the results - to let myself choose change, simply for the sake of change. At 53... fer cryin' out loud! You'd think I was 13 and worried about other kids laughing at my hair. To make a massage appt involves weeks of excruciatingly self-dialogue about whether it (or I) am worth it.

At least, this time, I didn't consult everyone for an opinion or approval or encouragement like I usually do. I just let the idea/choice hang in my thoughts & feelings long enough and then just did it. And I also simply let the stylist propose a style that he thought would be different and attractive - just gave up control and trusted him to not make me look silly. (Like my mom used to do by cutting my bangs as short as 1/2 an inch... and then blaming me for not sitting still) But it was STILL a "big deal", wasn't it? I did have all these thoughts about an act of self-care that so many women just take for granted - that is as natural as eating a healthy salad: because that's what one does.

And it was a big deal for me to let go enough to let someone else "design"  how I look, at least from the hair style aspect. My focus has been on defining/clarifying what is me (versus sifting out & rejecting all the crap that was projected onto "me") and all the "control" that implies. It's HAIR; it grows back... my hair is a part of "me" like my freckles are - but the outside of me isn't the inside me - I'm a whole lot more than just how my hair looks.

It's like the only way I knew to "love" my hair was to let grow - grow - grow. To leave it "alone" and let it be what it was - un-fussed with; unfussed over. SIGH.... I guess that says how I was relating to me, in lots of ways.

The stylist is an old comical hippie with lots of talk & personality; someone who would've been my friend "back in the day". We laughed over: "... and now for something completely different!"

Like being able to let other people in through the boundaries... have a chance to be dependable and "leaned on" themselves... to love myself enough to let other people "in" again... and to join them in their universe. I think loving myself includes giving people the chance to love me, too.... without "dictating" how that's done - the knee-jerk protective fear that love = abuse, from everyone, all the time.

Sorry - I'm babbling again...

[sKePTiKal]

I liked it just fine, when he was finished. But I've since washed & tried to style it myself... and sigh! (futzing with hair is another one of those things "we" didn't do for me... so I never learned any of the magic tricks) now it looks scarily like a style I had back in the '80s... brushed back bang wings & all. And he did say it wasn't supposed to be "neat" & tidy... it was supposed to curl & flip up in places... be a bit wild & unruly - so NOT like my usual definition of "me" that I suspect my ambiguous feelings about the hair are really resistance to letting the stern, tightly pulled back (under control) mask I used to hide behind. It's not that "orderly" behind the mask anyway, ya know????

Cars are another "image" prop for me... I commend your choice of color! and in some respects, I think a new car is "cheaper" because it doesn't nickel & dime you with constant repairs. My indulgence on the car side, was an orange jeep wrangler rubicon - a "big boy's" tonka toy. I was tired of small cars... being blinded by oncoming lights... I wanted to sit up higher on the road. And I just loved the look on the professional truck driver's face who had me blocked in on moving day... we had snow on the ground and the only way out was to drive through the front yard (with 3 howling kitties inside). He didn't think I could do it - but I just dropped it in 4-wheel , drove over & through the snow pile and waved goodbye. This thing hasn't met a curb it couldn't just walk over... and I've dusted quite a few green boys who didn't realize that a gray-haired lady knew what to do with the low, low gearing in the manual transmission at a stop light.... tee-hee!

(ahem! :: straightening clothes & being prim & proper again:

OK. So maybe the wild & unruly hair DOES work, after all. I just have to let it work for/on the rest of me...

[Meh]

now it looks scarily like a style I had back in the '80s...

Bombdigity! .......................80's is in style..for those who didn't live through it once already.

"futzing with hair is another one of those things "we" didn't do for me... so I never learned any of the magic tricks"

Yeah, me too girlfriend...............my momma didn't pass down any of the feminine wisdom, a good hair-doo comes under feminine wisdom don't it?  

[Meh]

Removed

[gratitude28]

As a total side note and totally cross talking here (please forgive me) - CB, I have had two Mazdas and they are INDESTRUCTIBLE. You will love your new car and I am glad you overwrote your tapes
xo Beth

[sKePTiKal]

Can I riff on your 3 points from the article?

Of course the anxiety is real!!

It's as real as the self - which isn't really "fragmented" as much as it is bits & pieces of self that exist in isolation from each other and don't speak the same language... so they have a much harder time assembling together into a whole "team" that has a distinct purpose and "personality".

Maybe the anxiety is the primal desire for that unification... with some fear of what might happen as a result of hobarting (a Hobart is a commercial dough mixer) all those standalone pieces together. When I think of anxiety as a form of energy (like the heat that changes flour water & yeast into bread)... then it's a bit easier to accept that anxiety just might have a useful purpose. I'm learning to listen harder and more carefully to anxiety when it shows up - it's got some important things to tell me about me.

Now... I'm not claiming this "absolute truth" here... but today, this is what I "see" that connects those 3 points. Might look different tomorrow... or maybe it's incomplete, too.

[Portia]

Helen,
our society as a whole does not often support the "real self"
I watched too many cold-war sci-fi films too young. How many real selves do you encounter day to day, and where do you encounter them? Sometimes it used to seem to me that I was in one of those old sci-fi films. Was I the human, or the alien - and did that even matter: the importance being the feeling of being different and walking amongst 'others'. This was an attitude encouraged by my primary caretaker.

Now. Do the 'others' exist? Well, in a way, yes. People walking around, acting their false self roles. Watch them on TV (or chuck the thing out!), watch them in shops, at work, wherever. How many people are acting,how many are really living, alive, can you tell? Our societies encourage false selves. To go against society might well make anyone anxious.

[Ami]

Wonderful observation,Portia!    x o x Ami